The work outlined in this grant proposal should allow us to obtain fundamental knowledge about the metabolism and growth conditions for cells from the retina and retinal pigmented epithelium. This would involve a detailed study of growth factors such as insulin, fibroblast growth factor, epithelial growth factor, nerve growth factor, steroids and low molecular weight nutrients. Techniques will be developed for the separation and growth of individual retinal cell types in tissue culture. In addition, experiments will be carried out to attempt to determine the role of the specific growth factors in vivo by use of autoimmune techniques.